Was he still alive? What had attacked him? What could? He was the son of Satan, for fuck’s sake. Who would mess with that? I had a couple of resources I could check out, but as I was leaving my apartment, my landline rang.
“Make it quick,” I said when I picked up.
“Okay. Two men from the FBI are here,” Cookie said. Quickly.
Crap. “Men in black are at the office?”
“Well, yes, but they’re actually in more of a navy.”
Crapola. I so didn’t have time for men. In any color. “Okay, two questions. Do they look mad, and are they hot?”
After a long, long pause, Cookie said, “One, not really. Two, no comment at this time. And three, you’re on speakerphone.”
After another long, long pause, I said, “Okie dokie then. Be there in a jiff.”
Before I could do it myself, a long arm reached over my shoulder and disconnected the call. Reyes stood behind me. The heat that forever radiated off him soaked into my clothes, saturated me in warmth. He eased closer, allowing the length of his body to press into my backside. I responded to his nearness with a flush of adrenaline, and when he bent his head, his breath fanning across my cheek, my knees almost gave beneath my weight.
“Nice catch, Dutch,” he said softly, his voice like a caress.
A rush of delight rippled down my spine and pooled in my abdomen. Reyes had been calling me Dutch since the day I was born, and I had yet to find out why. He was like the desert, stark and beautiful, harsh and unforgiving, with the promise of treasure behind every dune, the allure of water hidden just beneath the surface.
I twisted around to face him. He refused to give up any ground he’d gained, and I had to lean back to look at him, to drink him in. His dark hair curled over an ear and hung slightly mussed over his forehead. His lashes — so thick, he always looked like he’d just woken up — shadowed liquid brown eyes. They sparkled with mischief nonetheless. He let his gaze wander at will, let it slow when it reached my mouth, dip when it reached the valley between Danger and Will Robinson. Then it rose and locked with mine, and I knew in that moment the true meaning of perfection.
“You look better,” I said, my tone airy. The wounds that had been so deep, so potentially fatal, had all but vanished. My head spun with a mixture of relief and concern.
He lifted my chin and brushed his fingers over my throat where it was still swollen from his momentary lapse of reason in the shower. He had a strong grip. “Sorry about that.”
“Care to explain?”
He lowered his head. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Who else?”
In lieu of an answer, he put his fingertips on a pulse point. He seemed to revel in the feel of it, the proof of life flowing through my veins.
“Is it the demons you told me about?” I asked.
“Yes.” He said it so matter-of-fact, so casually, one would think demons tried to kill him on a regular basis. He’d told me about them only last week, when I found out who he really was. He’d said they were after me, but to get to me, they’d have to go through him. I thought he was speaking metaphorically. Apparently not.
“Are they—” I stopped midsentence and swallowed hard. “—are you okay?”
“I’m unconscious,” he said, edging closer, his tongue wetting his full mouth.
My stomach somersaulted, but only in part because of the tongue. “You’re unconscious? What do you mean?”
He had braced a hand against the countertop on either side of me, imprisoning me within his sinewy arms. “I mean, I’m not awake,” he said a heartbeat before nipping my earlobe with his teeth, just hard enough to send a quake skimming over the surface of my skin.
The deep tenor of his voice reverberated through my bones, liquefying them from the inside out. I fought hard to focus on his words instead of the turmoil each syllable generated, each touch. He was like chocolate-covered heroin, and I was an addict through and through.
I’d had him inside me before. I’d known heaven for a brief period of time, the experience so surreal, so earth-shattering, I was certain he’d ruined me to all other men forever. Seriously, who could compete with a being created from beauty and sin and fused together with the blistering heat of sensuality? He was a god among men. Damn it.
“Why aren’t you awake?” I asked, struggling to redirect my thoughts. “Reyes, what happened?”
He’d been busy nibbling his way to my collarbone, his hot mouth evoking seismic activity at each point of contact.
I really hated to interrupt, but … “Reyes, are you listening to me?”
He raised his head, a sensual grin playing at the corners of his mouth, and said, “I’m listening.”
“To what? The sound of blood rushing to your nether regions?”
“No,” he said with a husky chuckle that made me tingle everywhere. “To your heartbeat.” He leaned in again, began the aerial assault again.
“Seriously, Reyes, how did you get hurt?”
“Painfully,” he whispered into my ear.
My chest constricted with his answer. “Time-out,” I said, grabbing the wrist of a hand that was doing the most amazing things to my girl parts.
He twisted his hand around and wound his fingers into mine. “You’re putting me in time-out?”
“Yes,” I said as a shaky sigh slid through my lips.
“If I don’t go, do I get a spanking?”
A burst of laughter escaped before I could stop it. “Reyes,” I said in admonishment. “We need to talk.”
“So talk,” he said, stroking my wrist with his thumb.
I placed an index finger on his shoulder and nudged. “Let me rephrase that. You need to talk. Please tell me what happened. Why are you unconscious?”
He let out a slow breath and leaned back to focus his liquid brown eyes on mine. “I told you last week, they found me.”
“The demons.”
“Yes.”
“What do they want?”
“The same thing I want,” he said, his eyes raking over my body, “but perhaps for different reasons.”
He’d explained before that they wanted me, the portal, a way into heaven. I had no idea they would go to such lengths. “Are you still alive?”
“My corporeal body is like yours. It’s harder to kill, much harder, than most humans’.”
Relief flooded every cell in my body. I took a deep breath and said, “Tell me what’s going on. Exactly.”
“Exactly. Okay, they’re waiting for exactly one of two things to happen.”
“Which are?”
“For my body to die so they can take me back to hell or for you to find me. One would give them access to the key,” he said, indicating the smooth, flowing lines of his tattoos with a nod. Amazingly, his tattoos were a map to the gates of hell. Without it, the hazardous journey through the void of eternity rarely ended well for any entities trying to escape. “And the other would give them access to heaven.” He looked at me point-blank. “Either would make them exceedingly happy.”
“Then tell me where your physical form is, and we can … I don’t know, hide you.”
He shook his head in regret. “Afraid I can’t do that.”
My brows shot together. “What do you mean, you can’t do that? Reyes, where are you?”
A humorless grin tipped one corner of his mouth. “In a safe place.”
“You’re safe from the demons?” I asked, my voice full of hope.
“No,” he answered. “You’re safe from the demons.”
When he went for a jugular again, I pulled back. “So, they know where you are? They’re trying to kill you?” What he was proposing sounded like my worst nightmare. Injured and helpless somewhere, with a madman trying to kill me. I’d never considered the culprit to be demonic, but now that I had new fodder, surely my reoccurring nightmare would update its software to reflect an evil presence. Wonderful.
With a loud sigh, he stepped back and sank into the chair at my computer desk, propping his feet up and crossing them at the ankles. “Do we really have to do this now? I may not have much time.”
My heart stumbled in my chest. I wondered how much time he had. How much time we had. I didn’t have a table and chairs, but I had a snack bar with a couple of barstools. I sat at one and turned to him. “Why won’t you tell me where you are?”
“Lots of different reasons.” His gaze slid over me like a veil of fire. He could ignite my deepest desires with a single glance. I decided right then and there no more reading romance novels by candlelight.
“Can you tell me what those reasons are, or should I guess?”
“Since I probably can’t stay all day, I’ll tell you.”
“At least we’re getting somewhere.”
“The first one is because it’s a trap, Dutch. Set for you and you alone. Why do you think they haven’t killed me yet? They want you to look for me, to find me. Remember, you don’t see them, they don’t see you.” He’d mentioned that before, but the truth was difficult to comprehend. Not to mention disturbing.
“And if I see them?” I asked.
He let his gaze travel over me once more. “Let’s just say, you’re hard to miss.”
“So, we’ll do this incognito. You know, like Navy SEALs or SWAT or something.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“That’s not good enough for me.” My hands curled into fists. “We have to try. We can’t just let them kill you.”
“You haven’t heard the second reason.”
That sounded foreboding. “Okay, so tell me.” I crossed my arms and waited.
“You won’t like it.”
“I’m a big girl,” I said, raising my chin a notch. “I can handle it.”
“Fair enough. I’m going to let my corporeal body pass away.”
Every muscle in my body stilled.
“It’s not like I need it,” he continued with a callous shrug. “It slows me down and, as you have witnessed yourself, makes me vulnerable to attack.”
“But in the camera, when you woke up from the coma, you disappeared. You dematerialized your human body.”
“Dutch,” he said, casting me a chastising gaze from underneath his dark lashes, “not even I can do that.”
“Then how did you just disappear? I saw the tape.”
“I can interfere with electrical devices anytime I want to. So can you, if you concentrate.”
I never knew that. “I just thought—”
“Wrong,” he said, his tone absolute. He was so testy when he was being tortured.
“Fine. I was wrong. It’s not like being a supernatural entity came with a manual.”
“True.”
“But that’s no reason to let your corporeal body pass away. I mean, what will happen to you? You just said that if you die, they’ll take you back to hell.”
“Even they don’t know if they can take me back to hell or not. That’s simply what they’re hoping for. There’s one surefire way to find out, I guess,” he said, raising his brows at the challenge.
“Wait, you don’t know what will happen? If they can take you back?”
He shrugged. “Not a clue. But it’s doubtful.”
“But what if they can? What if you’re sent back?”
“That’s not likely to happen,” he insisted. “Who would do the sending?”
“Oh, my god. I can’t believe you’re willing to take such a risk.”
“It’s riskier being alive here on Earth, Dutch,” he said, an angry edge to his voice. “And it’s a risk I am no longer willing to take.”
“Riskier for who?”
“Riskier for you.”
His answer frustrated me even more. “I don’t understand. Why is it riskier for me?”
He raked both hands through his dark hair. The gesture left it more mussed, sexy, and it took me a moment to refocus. “They’re demons, Dutch. And there is only one thing in this universe they want more than human souls.”
“The breakfast burritos at Macho Taco?”
He rose and stood in front of me, towering over me. “They want you, Dutch. They want the portal. Do you know what will happen if they find you?”
I bit my lower lip and offered a one-shouldered shrug. “They’ll have a way into heaven.”
“I can’t let that happen.”
“Right,” I said sadly. “I forgot, you’ll have to kill me.”
He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “And I will, Dutch. In a heartbeat.”
Great. It was nice to know he had my back.
“You’re hurt?” he asked, lifting my chin with his fingers.
“Stop reading my mind,” I said defensively.
“I can’t read your mind. I’m like you: I read emotions, feelings. And you’re hurt.”
“How did a demon find its way onto this plane in the first place?” I asked, pulling away from him. I stood and started pacing. He sat back down, propped his feet again. For the first time I noticed the boots he was wearing. They were black, part cowboy and part motorcycle. I liked them. “I thought it was almost impossible for demons to get through the gate.”
“Yes, almost impossible. Every once in a while, a demon braves the void and searches for a way through the maze. It’s hazardous and they rarely make it. Most are lost in the oblivion of eternity.” He nudged my mouse and my computer came alive. Which meant my wallpaper popped up. Which meant Reyes’s picture popped up, his mug shot, the only picture I had of him. He frowned.
I resisted the urge to crawl under the barstool. He could probably still have seen me anyway. “You were saying?”
“Right.” He refocused on me. “If one miraculously makes it through the gate, it still isn’t really here. It has to piggyback onto the soul of a newborn. It’s the only way for them to gain access to this plane. The plane that you and I happen to be on,” he reminded me.
“But that’s not what you did when you escaped from hell. You didn’t have to piggyback.”
“I was different. Once I escaped, I could navigate between the planes as easily as you walk through a doorway.”
“How is that possible?”
“It just is,” he said evasively. “I was made different. I was created for a reason. When the fallen were thrown from heaven, they were banished from the light, thus the need for me. I was a tool. A means to an end. But being born on Earth was perhaps not the wisest decision I’ve ever made. My corporeal body has made me too vulnerable and should be destroyed. The physical evidence of the key hidden.”
When Reyes was born in human form, the key, the map to hell that was imprinted on his body when he was created, appeared on his human body as well. I wondered what his human parents had thought of it. What the doctors had thought. A tattoo on a newborn. I wasn’t sure how it all worked, but apparently the tattoo was the means for Satan to escape from hell. He didn’t want to escape, to render himself vulnerable, until a portal was born. And he sent his son to this plane to wait for one. Reyes was supposed to retrieve Satan and all his armies the minute I was born. Instead, he was born upon the Earth as well. To be with me. To grow up with me. But he was kidnapped from his birth parents long before his dream could come to fruition.
“If those demons make it back through the gate,” he continued, “they’ll have the key and my father can escape. Which is exactly what he’ll do.” He leaned back in the chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “You know how people have prophesied about the end of time since pretty much the beginning of time?”
“Yes,” I said, knowing instinctively his anecdote would end badly.
“They have no idea what hell awaits them if my father gets this key.” He dropped his hands and leaned forward. “And the first thing he would do is come after you.”
“I don’t care.”
He fixed a dubious scowl on me. “Of course you do.”
“No. I don’t. You can’t just let your body die. We don’t know what’ll happen. They could get you either way.”
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, they were no longer a threat, that you were able to vanquish them all.”
“Me?”
“There’s still this one little problem I have called life behind bars. I’m not going back to prison, Dutch.”
What? He was worried about that? “I don’t understand. You can leave your body anytime you want. It’s not like those bars can hold you.”
“It’s not that simple.”
He was being evasive again, holding something back. “Reyes, please tell me.”
“It’s not important.” He reached up and turned my computer screen off as if it suddenly bothered him.
“Reyes.” I placed a hand on his arm, coaxed him back to me. “Why isn’t it that simple?”
He worked his jaw and glanced down at his boots. “There’s … a side effect.”
“When you leave your body?”
“Yes. When I leave, my body mimics a seizurelike state. If I do it too often, the prison doctors put me on drugs that keep me from seizing. Drugs that have an unacceptable side effect.” His gaze traveled back to mine. “They keep me from separating. I’m stuck in prison and you are completely vulnerable.”
Oh. “Well, then keep running. I’ll help you. But let me get you medical attention for now. I have a friend who’s a doctor, and I know a couple of nurses. They would see you for me. They wouldn’t turn us in, I promise. Let me find you and we can worry about prison later.”
“Because if you find me, he finds me. And I go back to prison no matter who you know.”
That again? “Who finds you?”
“The guy your uncle has glued to your tail.”
That took me by surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“Your uncle put a tail on you, probably in the hopes that I’d show up.”
“Uncle Bob put a tail on me?” I asked, appalled.
“Aren’t you supposed to notice those types of things? You know, to detect them?” He winked teasingly.
“You’re changing the subject,” I said, trying to recover from the wink.
“Sorry.” He sobered. “Okay, so you want me to stay alive because there is a slight possibility I could be sent back to hell. Does that about sum it up?”
“Reyes, you escaped from there. The same being that was created with the map to the gates of hell on his body. You’re the key to their freedom, and you absconded with it. You were their general, their most powerful warrior, and you betrayed them. What do you think will happen to you if you’re sent back? Not to mention the fact that if you are sent back, your father — who just happens to be Satan, by the way — will have the key to escape from hell himself.”
“If.”
“And it’s an if I’m not willing to risk. Hell has to be torturous enough without being public enemy number one. And to risk Satan getting out?” I crossed my arms. “Tell me where you are.”
“Dutch, you can’t just come after me. Even if you could vanquish them all—”
“Why do you keep saying that?” I asked, exasperated. “I’m a bright light that lures the departed in so they can cross through me. I’m kind of like one of those bug zappers, if you think about it. And I’m fairly certain Vanquisher of Demons is not in my job description.”
A soft grin slipped across his handsome face and somehow managed to melt my kneecaps. “If you had even an inkling of what you were capable of, the world would be a dangerous place indeed.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard such a thing, and worded just as vaguely. “Okay, why don’t you tell me, then?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t.
“If I told you what you were capable of, you would have the advantage. That’s a risk I can’t take.”
“What on planet Earth could I do to you?”
With a growl he stood and pulled me to him. “God, the things you ask, Dutch.”
He wrapped his long fingers around my neck and tilted my chin up with his thumb a split second before he captured my mouth with his own. The kiss skyrocketed from hesitant to demanding instantly. His tongue dived inside my mouth, and I reveled in the taste of him, the earthy smell of him. I leaned into his embrace, tilted my head to allow the kiss to deepen, then held on to his wide shoulders for dear life.
One hand wound around the nape of my neck while the other held me to him as he walked me back, pressed me against the wall. Taking both my hands into one of his, he fastened them against the wall above my head as his other hand explored at will. He cupped Danger, brushed over her peak until it hardened beneath him and I couldn’t stop a soft moan from escaping my lips.
He grinned, dipped his head, and pressed his hot mouth against my pulse. Molten lava swirled in my abdomen, causing sensual quakes to shudder through me. I fought for the strength to stop him. Seriously, this was ridiculous. My utter lack of control where Reyes was concerned bordered on deplorable. So what if he was the son of Satan, reportedly the most beautiful being ever to have walked the paths of heaven? So what if he was formed from the heat of a thousand stars? So what if he made my insides gooey?
I had to get a grip. And it needed to be on something other than Reyes’s manly parts.
“Wait,” I said when his tongue sent a shiver straight to my core. “I have to give you fair warning.”
“Oh?” He leaned back and leveled a lazy, sensual gaze on me.
“I’m not going to allow you to let your corporeal body die.”
“And you’re going to stop me?” he asked, his voice skeptical.
I pushed him away, picked up my bag, and headed out the door. Just before I closed it, I looked back at him and said, “I’m going to find you.”
Chapter Four
IF IT HAS TIRES OR TESTICLES, IT’S GONNA GIVE YOU TROUBLE.
— BUMPER STICKER I locked the door behind me, essentially leaving the son of Satan in my apartment. Alone. Annoyed. And quite possibly sexually frustrated. A niggling in the back of my mind had me hoping I didn’t make him angry. I would hate for him to catch my bachelorette pad on hellfire.
But really, he was being ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. The whole thing reminded me of my elementary school days when my best friend said, “Boys are yucky and we should throw rocks at them.”
I stomped across the parking lot, allowing the cool breeze to calm my shaking desire, and cut through my dad’s bar to get to the interior set of stairs. My dad was an Albuquerque cop who, like my uncle Bob, skyrocketed through promotion after promotion until they both made detective. With my help, naturally. I’d been solving crimes for them since I was five, though solving might be a strong word. I’d been relaying information from the departed to help them solve crimes since I was five. Better. While my uncle was still on the APD payroll, my dad retired a few years ago and bought the bar I now worked out of. My office was on the second floor. I also lived about two feet from the back door. It was all very convenient.
Dad was in early. A light from his office filtered into the dark lounge, so I wound around bistro tables, cornered the bar, and ducked my head inside.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, startling him. He jerked at the sound of my voice and turned toward me. He had been studying a picture on the far wall, his long thin frame resembling a Popsicle stick clothed in wrinkled Ken-wear. Cleary he’d been working all night. A bottle of Crown Royal sat open on his desk, and he held a near-empty goblet in his hand.
The emotion radiating off him took me by surprise. It was wrong somehow, like when a server once brought me iced tea after I’d ordered a diet soda. The normally mundane task of taking that first sip sent a shock to my system, the flavor unexpected. While Dad had his occasional off days, his flavor was different. Unexpected. A deep sorrow mixed with the overwhelming weight of hopelessness barreled toward me to steal the breath from my lungs.
I straightened in alarm. “Dad, what’s wrong?”
He forced a weathered smile across his face. “Nothing, hon, just getting some paperwork done,” he lied, the deception like a sour note in my ear. But I’d play along. If he didn’t want to talk about what was bothering him, I’d let it slide. For now.
“Have you been home?” I asked.
He put down the glass and lifted a tan jacket off the back of his chair. “Headed that way right now. Did you need anything?”
God, he was a bad liar. Maybe that’s where I got it from. “Nope, I’m good. Tell Denise hey for me.”
“Charley,” he said, a warning tone leveling his voice.
“What? I can’t say hey to my favorite stepmother?”
With a weary sigh, he shrugged into his jacket. “I need a shower before the lunch crowd descends. Sammy should be here soon if you want some breakfast.”
Sammy, Dad’s cook, made huevos rancheros to die for. “I may get something later.”
He was in a hurry to get out of there. Or, possibly, to get away from me. He slid past without making eye contact, despair rolling off him like a thick, muddy vapor. “Be back in a few,” he said, as cheerful as a mental patient on suicide watch.
“’Kay,” I said back, just as cheerfully. He smelled like honey-lemon cough drops, the scent lingering in his office. When he was gone, I strolled inside it and glanced at the picture he’d been looking at. It was a photo of me around the age of six. My bangs were crooked and both of my front teeth were missing. I was eating watermelon nonetheless. Juice dripped from my fingers and off my chin, but what caught my attention, what had caught my dad’s attention, was the dark shadow hovering just over my shoulder. A smudged fingerprint on the glass gave proof that Dad had been examining that same spot.
I glanced down to the top of a bookshelf housed underneath his montage of humorous family moments. He’d set out several photographs of me, each one featuring a dark shadow somewhere in the background, each one smudged with a fingerprint in that exact same spot. And I couldn’t help but wonder what Dad was doing. Well, that and what the dark shadow meant, ’cause even I didn’t know that one. Was it a by-product of grim reaperism? Or maybe, just maybe, it was Reyes, his dark robe almost visible, almost capturable. The thought intrigued me. Growing up, I’d seen him only a handful of times. Had he been there more often? Watching over me? Protecting me?
* * * When I arrived at my office, sure enough, two men in crisp navy suits sat waiting. They stood, each offering a hand.
“Ms. Davidson,” one said. He showed his ID then tucked it away inside his jacket. Just like on TV. It was wicked cool, and I realized I needed a jacket with an inside pocket if I were ever to be taken seriously. I usually kept my laminated PI license in the back pocket of my jeans, where it got bent and crinkled and thoroughly mutilated.
The other agent did the same, taking my hand in one of his and flashing his ID with the other simultaneously. They were very coordinated. And they looked like brothers. Though one had a few years on the other, both sported light blond crews and transparent blue eyes that, in any other situation, wouldn’t have been nearly so creepy as I was finding it.
“I’m Agent Foster,” the first one said, “and this is Special Agent Powers. We’re investigating the disappearance of Mimi Jacobs.”
At the mention of Mimi’s name, Cookie knocked over a pencil cup. That wasn’t so bad until she tried to grab it and sideswiped a lamp in the process. While pencils and other writing paraphernalia went flying, the lamp fell halfway to the floor, stopping to crash against the front of her desk when she grabbed the cord. Reacting to the sound, she pulled too hard, and the lamp ricocheted back up, crashing into the back of her computer monitor and knocking off the ceramic wiener dog Amber had given her for Christmas.
Subtle.
After a five-minute trailer of The Young and the Accident Prone—one that would give me the giggles for months to come — I turned back to our guests. “Would you like to step into my office?”
“Certainly,” Agent Foster said, eyeing Cookie like she needed to be locked up.
As I led the way, I flashed her my best incredulous look. She lowered her eyes. Thankfully, the wiener dog landed in the trash can atop a cushion of papers and didn’t break. She fished it out, keeping her gaze averted.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a Mimi Jacobs,” I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee as they took a seat in front of my desk. Cookie was excellent at keeping the coffee fresh and the hugs warm. Or maybe it was the coffee warm and the hugs fresh. Either way, it was a win — win.
“Are you sure?” Foster asked. He seemed like the young cocky type. I wasn’t particularly fond of the young cocky type, but I was trying really hard to get past my first impression. “She’s been missing for almost a week, and a notepad with your name and number scribbled on it was the only thing on her desk when she disappeared.”
She must have written my name and number down when she talked to Cookie. I turned back to them, stirring my coffee in doe-eyed innocence. “If Mimi Jacobs has been missing for almost a week, why are you just now coming to me?”
The older one, Powers, chafed, probably because I’d answered a question with a question. He was clearly used to getting answers with his questions. Silly rabbit. “We didn’t think much of the note until we realized you were a private investigator. We thought she might have hired you.”
“Hired me for what?” I asked, fishing.
He shifted in his chair. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
“So, she wasn’t in trouble? Maybe with the company she works for?”
The men glanced at each other. In any other situation, I would have shouted eureka. Internally, anyway. But I felt as though I had just handed them the perfect scapegoat. They knew more and were not about to tell me. “We’ve considered that, Ms. Davidson, but we would appreciate it if that information were kept between us.”
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